


inside my lungs (breathe what’s yours)

by blue--phantom (twilightscribe)



Series: i'll be the blood (if you'll be the bone) [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angels, Demon Hunters, First Meetings, Introspection, M/M, McHanzo Week, McHanzo Week 2016, Not Period Accurate, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Van Helsing AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8987731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightscribe/pseuds/blue--phantom
Summary: Jesse McCree's lived a long, dangerous life and is out for redemption from his early, criminal years. He's still out on that search when he meets one Hanzo Shimada.
Otherwise known as: Five times Jesse McCree made a life changing decision (and one time he didn't).





	

**one.**

When Jesse was ten, his mother passed away. She was all he had. The family that employed her as their housekeeper allowed him to stay on, mostly as a kitchen boy.

Luckily for him, his mother had seen to his education up until that point. She had wanted more for him that what she had, putting away money in a little stash that only the two of them knew of to send him off to a better school.

“One day,” she always said. “One day you will have a better life than me.”

Jesse believed her when he was young. As he grew older, he doubted that would ever happen. There was little use for a small boy, with no family to speak of, and with only a rudimentary education to his name. Oh, he could read and write alright and would sneak into the family’s library whenever he had the chance.

He does what’s asked of him and does what he’s told. Jesse McCree follows orders and follows them well.

He’s afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t listen, if he makes a mistake. Though he isn’t supposed to, he listens to the conversations that the adults have. It’s one night that he hears them speak of him.

“We’ll have to do something with the boy. We cannot keep him on forever.”

“What do you suppose we do with him then?”

“Oh, we’ll find someone to take him. If not, what sort of price do you think he may fetch?”

Jesse McCree is twelve when he makes the decision to run away.

He packs a small bag with what little is left of his mother and takes the money she saved. He realizes that there’s no such thing as a ‘better life’. He runs and doesn’t look back.

**two.**

At fourteen, Jesse McCree has made a name for himself on the streets. If you need a good shot and someone good with their hands, you look for him. It pays the bills and Jesse’s careful to keep himself as under the radar as possible.

When he needs, he slips into a crowd and lifts a wallet here, a watch there. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to keep food in his belly and a roof over his head. It’s a shitty roof with more than a few holes in it, but no one asks questions and Jesse’s content with how things are. No one talks to each other. It’s everyone for themselves.

He’s perfectly fine with sleeping with a gun by his head, a knife under his pillow.

If he’s lucky, he’ll earn himself a little extra and get shitfaced down at one of the saloons down a ways that sell cheap liquor. He lost his virginity to a fine looking lass named Louisa at the age of fourteen in a back room at some saloon; he doesn’t remember much else about the experience. He hadn’t felt much different afterwards.

At fourteen, he’s approached by a man who goes by Augie.

Augie’s older than Jesse by at least ten years, dressed fine and tells Jesse that his skills are useful. If he learns to put them to _proper_ use. He also says that there’s good money in it, if Jesse accepts his offer.

There’s been rumours of a new gang. Jesse’s heard ‘em. He doesn’t think on the decision long because he’s got no prospects, little money, and the local sheriff’s beginning to come down a little harder on people in his line of work. Better to get some protection.

He joins the Deadlock Gang at age fourteen.

**three.**

Jesse knows something’s up about a year into his time with the Deadlock Gang.

He just can’t put his finger on what it is.

Augie’s always got this glazed look in his eyes, and it’s the same for the other two lieutenants that Jesse’s acquainted with, fellows by the names of Kit and Dirch. In all his time and quick rise through the ranks to one of the senior smugglers, Jesse’s never met those in charge.

All he knows is that their head honcho is known as Lazar amongst the lower ranks. Augie, Kit, and Dirch always refer to him as ‘sir’. It’s all rather formal. And suspicious.

Jesse chooses to ignore it. He ignores the prickling along his sense that screams at him that something’s wrong. He constantly feels like he’s being watched.

He gets paid on time and the work’s good. It’s steady. Jesse doesn’t ask questions cause he doesn’t want answers. The adrenalin rush he gets on particularly risky job is better than all the sex he’s had – and joining up with the Deadlocks has done wonders for his sex life – and he’s a crackshot with Peacemaker.

No one else in the gang is as good a shot as him. For once in his life, Jesse McCree is irreplaceable.

So, he continues to pretend that everything’s alright. That there’s nothing wrong. He keeps to himself and doesn’t ask about the scars on Augie’s neck when he comes with new orders. He doesn’t question what he’s asked to do, he does it.

Something’s up, he knows it, most of them know it. But Jesse doesn’t care. The pay’s good. He’s _needed_ and that’s something he’s never felt before. It’s a rather intoxicating feeling, more addicting than the cigars he picks up.

So, he chooses to stay.

**four.**

Reyes is absolutely terrifying.

Jesse comes to, flat on his back, with a large black boot on the centre of his chest. Trying to push it off is useless and Peacemaker is just out of reach. He scowls up at the boot’s owner.

“Don’t give me that look, kid,” Reyes says. He’s still got a shotgun in hand, elbow resting casually on his knee. “Trust me when I say you’re gonna want to hear what I’m offering.”

“Why should I listen to you, asshole?” Jesse spits.

Reyes took out Augie and Kit, whose brains and blood are still decorating Jesse’s right side. He still remembers the way Lazar bared his _fangs_ , razor sharp and white. There had been blood, so much of it, and Reyes had wings the same shade of the clouds at noon.

There’d been feathers everywhere and Jesse had _hesitated_. He hadn’t taken the shot, not even when Dirch had been screaming at him to do it, before a bullet had struck him dead in the forehead, his head exploding backwards and painting the wall red and grey.

“Cause you’re about to go away for a long ass time, kid,” Reyes replies. “For a bunch of shit you didn’t actually do. So, I’m gonna give you a choice: You can either stay here and rot in hell and go down as a serial killer and leader of the Deadlock Gang; or… you come with me and make something of yourself. Your choice.”

“Gabe, I–”

“Shut up, Jack.”

Jesse glares up at Reyes. He just killed everyone he knew, and now he thinks to offer him something? But… Reyes is right. And Jesse knows he wouldn’t do well in prison. He’s had doubts since the beginning; he knew along that something was wrong.

“Alright, alright. I’m with you.”

**five.**

“Couple things you need to know ‘bout this line of work,” Reyes tells him one night.

Jesse looks up from the handbook Reyes gave him. He’s read it back to front four times already, but he knows that he needs to commit the entire thing to memory. It’s the gospel that they work by, and he needs to be able to identify what he’s dealing with quickly. All that’s gonna keep him alive is preparation and his own skill.

He’s not an angel walking the earth like Reyes. And it’s not like he’s immortal like Morrison, either.

All those stories that people used to tell, of things that go bump in the night? They’re all real. There’s a good portion that just want to live, but it’s the ones that decide that eating people or shit like that is a good idea. And that’s where they come in.

They’re guardians of the human race.

“Mean beside all this shit?” He waves the book at Reyes.

“Don’t be a smartass, kid.” Reyes sighs, slumps back in his chair. “Look, all that’s stuff you need to know and it may save your life one day. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You need to know this: Something from this line of work sticks with you.”

Jesse knows that. He knows about the nightmares that Morrison has, that have Reyes getting up in the middle of the night to sit with him. He’s pretty sure that the two of them are more than just friends and partners, but he doesn’t say anything about it. It’s not his place.

He can live with the nightmares. Those are easier to deal with than how the shit he used to do is haunting him. That’s what he’s guessing is gonna stick with him: his regrets.

**(one).**

Jesse’s on his own now. Reyes retired and Morrison went with him.

He’s in Japan, tracking down a cannibalistic witch out looking for immortality. She’s left a trail of bodies across England and Germany, scenes that are gonna haunt Jesse for the next few years. He stopped her from making her last kill, but now she’s even more determined to get what she’s after.

Just his luck.

Not having considered himself a particularly lucky person, Jesse’s not even surprised that shit goes absolutely wrong for him.

The witch was prepared for him.

And he walks right into a trap.

He’s immobilized and bleeding, his right arm hanging uselessly as his side. Blood dribbling down his face and into his eye from a deep gash right above it. Jesse has to fight to be able to focus on the witch.

She laughs, her deep red lips turned up into a nasty sneer. “I thought it appropriate after you foiled me in Berlin that you become my final sacrifice.” She holds her knife up to the light, shiny obsidian glinting ominously in the light. “I’ll cut out your heart and once I’ve feasted upon it, the immortality I’ve sought for so long shall be mine!”

Jesse is _fucked_. He never thought he’d go out like this. But at least he gave it his all. He struggles to lift his left arm, manages to make it twist and it feels like his skin is on fire, every nerve ending burning as he fights to grasp Peacemaker, lift it, and aim it at the woman’s heart.

He only manages the first two. Barely.

“Oh, how sweet,” she coos. “My, but you are a strong one. It seems I was right to spare you for this. You will make the appropriate sacrifice. You will make _me_ stronger.”

She steps towards him, dagger in hand.

The first arrow catches her in the shoulder.

She blinks, stares at it, “Wha–”

“You shall _not_ have him.”

The voice is deep, sends shivers down Jesse’s spine, and he struggles to turn towards it, but it sounds like it’s coming from everywhere at once.

The second arrow pierces her heart. A third plunges into her eye.

Jesse collapses to the floor, Peacemaker clattering away from him. He rolls onto his back, and finds himself staring up into a handsome face, crowned with a head of dark hair; there’s a touch of grey at the temples.

He finds himself entranced.

Jesse blinks, snaps his jaw closed with an audible click, and then says, “Hello, stranger. Y’know, I never did catch your name?”

“I am Hanzo.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Prompt:** Young Love  
>  **Words:** 1940 words
> 
> Listen, I know I'm behind. But I'm getting myself all caught up. And here we have some pre-relationship stuff, some of Jesse's backstory, our first meeting with Gabriel Reyes and some mentions of Jack, and how Hanzo and Jesse first met. And I had fun with this. As always, I'll be expanding on shit for the series, but I think next I gotta work on today's prompt. So, enjoy this. There will be more soon!


End file.
